The Woes of Preaching

If you can do anything other than preach) do it! -a ttributed to CHARLES a man for the ministry. You should stay here. Why, a minister only has to work one day a week-Sunday when he preaches.

Furthermore, I don’t think you’re qualified for the ministry. You might well starve:’ But for Charles Fuller there was no turning back.

From that day on he felt like Paul who said, “Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel.”’ George Truett (1867-1944) was converted to Christ at age SPURGEON === ◊ ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;� nineteen after hearing a sermon based on Hebrews 10:38: Now the just shall live by faith. The following Wednesday night, his pastor encouraged him to share his testimony, and the crowd was amazed at the power and passion of his words. From that time on, many people encouraged him to enter the ministry.

His primary vocational interest, however, was teaching school. Whenever asked to speak at church services or evangelistic meetings, he demonstrated remarkable ability. He was once introduced with the words, “Brethren, this is George Truett, and he can speak like Spurgeon. George, tell them what the Lord has done for you .. :• Still Truett worked at school, teaching, and toyed with the idea of studying law.

One Saturday, he heard that a special business meeting was going to be held at his church that night. He arrived to discover that the church was meeting to vote to ordain him into the ministry. The oldest deacon present rose to his feet and said, “I move that this church ordain brother Charles Truett to the full work of the Gospel ministry.” Truett, twenty-t hree, rose to protest, but the church would have none of it.

He later recalled, “There I was, against a whole church, against a church profoundly moved. There was not a dry eye in the house ... one of the supremely solemn hours in a church’s life. I was thrown into the stream, and just had to swim.” W.

A. Criswell, who followed Truett as pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, followed a different route into ministry. He felt called to preach in childhood. When he wa� ten years old, he became intrigued with Rev.

John Hicks, who stayed in the Criswell home while preaching at a local revival meeting. “I told him I had been thinking about being a preacher for years, since I was six,” Criswell later recalled. “Yet I knew I wasn’t even converted yet, hadn’t been saved. But I knew God wanted me to be a preacher and had the same conviction then I have now.

I cannot remember when I was not going to be a preacher:’ Criswell received Christ as his Savior, and he was baptized the following Sunday. His sense of God’s calling on his life never wavered.2 •Adapted from Daniel P. Fuller, The Story of Charles E. F11ller (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1972), 37.

2Adapted from Billy Keith, W. A. Criswell (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1973, 21.